


melissa

by toyotas



Series: daisuga week [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alchemy, Daisuga Week, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Military, Pining, colonel!daichi and lt colonel!suga, full metal alchemist au, human experiments - chimeras, michimiya yui is a matchmaker, the rest of the volleyball team is his squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyotas/pseuds/toyotas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“I forget how good you are at your job, sometimes,” Daichi says, kneeling beside him, passing Suga a canteen of water he stowed in the deep pocket of his royal blue uniform pants. “Did you even miss one target?”</p>
  <p>Suga grins. “I do more than just stand behind you and look pretty, sir.”</p>
</blockquote>--written for daisuga week 02: crossover/confession, feat. Colonel "Steadfast Alchemist" Sawamura, Lieutenant Colonel and Communications Specialist Sugawara
            </blockquote>





	melissa

**Author's Note:**

> this is LATE and i am sorry. 
> 
> so this is a full metal alchemist (refer to any incarnation of fma, it doesn't matter) au written for daisuga week day 2 prompt confession/crossover. the title comes from fma:2003's OP1 - melissa by porno graffiti. 
> 
> **warnings for (non-graphic) mentions of human experimentation (since there are chimeras after all)
> 
> thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos on day one!! i really appreciate it. please accept my enthusiastic virtual high five.

**melissa**

-

_cleave apart the memories of those faraway days with your hands;_

_end the breath of sadness._

_come on, pierce through my chest made anxious by love._

_

 

“If you stare any harder at that paper, you’ll probably go cross-eyed, Colonel.”

Daichi lets his head drop onto the formidable (and frankly _ridiculous_ ) stack of paper work he’s supposed to finish before he leaves the office.

“Suga,” he says, voice muffled by the mess. “What did I say about titles? Just call me Daichi.”

“That would be improper, sir,” Suga replies amusedly. He perches on the corner of Daichi’s wooden desk that isn’t already occupied by binder clipped documents, empty ramen packages, and used coffee mugs.

Daichi snorts. “I think you get exception. _For God sakes_ , I mean, how long have you known me? I think we passed improper when we were two and our parents made us bathe together.”

“I drop honorifics and call you Daichi then? Then Lieutenants Tanaka and Nishinoya catch on, and everything is ‘Daichi this and Daichi that and Daichi, Major Hinata got his state alchemist’s watch stuck in a tree again, and Major Tsukishima is perfectly capable of fishing it out for him but he’s too busy being a little shit and laughing himself into a coma,’” Suga says, flicking Daichi’s ear.

“The whole office catches on,” he continues, his tempo dramatic. “Daichi, Daichi, _Daichiiii_! We stop using honorifics and we disregard rank and we stop wearing our uniforms every day because the collar is kind of itchy. Now we’re nicknaming all the generals and doing target practice in our boxer shorts. And to top it all off? Major Azumane starts calling you ‘Dai- _chan_.”

“You certainly have a way with words,” Daichi grumbles, picking himself up and spinning his ball point pen between his hands.

“I believe I’m your communications specialist for a reason, sir,” Suga says cheerfully. “I could repeat that whole spiel in Xingese if you’d like.”

“At ease, soldier,” Daichi says, tucking the pen behind his ear. He stands from his desk, stretches, and throws on his blue uniform jacket. “How about a coffee break?”

“Yes, sir,” Suga says. “But you’ll have to make it quick if you want to leave the office at a reasonable hour.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s only paperwork, after all. How hard could it be?”

“Those sounds like some famous last words to me.”

_ 

It’s past midnight with one more booklet to review when Daichi resigns himself to sleeping on one of his office sofas. His eyes glaze over the fine print, and he startles himself back into consciousness more than once. He casts envious glances in the direction of his second-in-command, who lies snoozing on his other sofa, body hidden under a military-issue blanket save for the crown of his head.

“Fuck it,” Daichi says after he’s read the same paragraph for the third time without any semblance of comprehension. He strips off his jacket and boots and plops himself onto his couch face down, face smothered in thin, coffee-stained pillows that reek of air freshener -- probably Suga’s doing, he thinks, since they smell like goddamn lilacs just like his apartment. He’s nearly snoring when -- 

“Daichi?” Suga murmurs, head emerging from his blanket burrow.

“Mmmnnrrghh?” Daichi replies, ever the articulate commanding officer.

“ _Colonel!_ ” Suga scolds.

Daichi groans into his pillow.

“You didn’t finish that paperwork, did you?”

“...”

“Did you?" 

“...I can neither confirm nor deny--”

Suga grabs him by the shirt and drags him back to his desk chair. 

“Work,” he says. “Finish.” 

“ _Suuuuuga_ ,” Daichi whines sleepily. “You’re definitely not supposed to manhandle your superior like that.”

Suga stares, unimpressed.

“You know, Yui keeps telling me how you’re an angel sent down from heaven, but she doesn’t know you like I do. You’re definitely the devil incarnate.”

“Damn straight,” Suga says, forcing his commanding officer’s hand to his pen, his mind to his job.

_

“You look like a truck ran over you, took a u-turn, and flattened you again,” Colonel Michimiya Yui says as they settle into their morning meeting. “Geez, Sawamura. What gives? Usually you’re the most put together of all of us.”

“Suga happened,” Daichi mutters. He rubs at his sore eyes, exhausted from the infinitesimal and inadequate amount of sleep he managed the night before, after Suga observed him like a hawk until all his t’s were crossed, his i’s were dotted, and his last shred of dignity was effectively disintegrated.

“Trouble in paradise, eh?” Yui laughs, elbowing him in the ribs.

Daichi blinks. “No, just some paperwork I didn’t--wait. How do you mean?”

“Are you two not a thing? I ran into Major Azumane in the caf yesterday, and the way he talked about you two…”

“We’re are _not_ ,” Daichi sputters, disgusted with himself when he feels an embarrassed flush creep up his cheeks. “I cannot believe this--I’m gonna… Just wait ‘til I get my hands on that cowardly--just. Do I _look_ like someone who’d break the fraternization law? What the hell did he say?”

“Calm down, Colonel. The Earth’s still spinning, isn’t it?” Yui says, leaning back into her seat with her hands behind her head. “He didn’t say anything specific. I just kind of assumed. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you the way you give him the eyes.”

“The _eyes_?” Daichi repeats, scandalized.

“The googly eyes,” Yui says, bugging her eyes out at him to demonstrate. “You get all sparkly like you’re some kind of rom-com heroine.”

“I most certainly do not do that.”

“I am but a humble and objective observer,” Yui says. “And you, Colonel Sawamura, are little more than a huge dork.”

Daichi slumps in his chair and rubs at his temples. “You’re out of your mind. You’re all out of your minds. I’m the only rational one left.”

“Well,” Yui concludes, “I guess they don’t call you the Steadfast Alchemist for nothing.”

_

After the weirdness of his morning interaction with Yui, the rest of Daichi’s day is fairly ordinary. His stack of paperwork on his desk is more reasonable, and he gets through it without too much difficulty. He has to separate his bickering subordinates Hinata and Kageyama once and lecture Tanaka for flicking bits of sandwich at Tsukishima while the latter tries to transcribe a transmission from Xing through his noise-cancelling headphones. But, he thinks, this is nothing new. They’re doing their jobs, and they’re doing them well -- which is why this band of misfits was stuck together under Daichi’s command in the first place.

But, Daichi thinks, drumming his fingers on his desk, how well they could do if only they were tested with the difficult field work their band of misfit scientists, soldiers, and alchemists was created to do -- investigation into the most heinous reported alchemy crimes.

He’s itching for field work, almost literally the way he picks at the calluses on his hands, rough from raising shields and digging trenches, like he’s reassuring himself that the alchemic circles tattooed on his palms haven’t disappeared even though he can’t remember the last time he used them for something. If nothing else, he longs for the shock of electricity and the stench of o-zone when he arouses the earth and watches it conform to the patterns in his mind. 

When he looks around the office, he understands Ukai’s hesitation. On the surface, he knows they seem young, unorganized, foolhardy, and reckless. Daichi’s the first to admit it (he watched Tsukishima pull bits of Tanaka’s bologna sandwich out of his hair after all). But he’s not an outsider to his squad, and he knows that they’re meant for _so_ much more than this. If only they’d be allowed to explore their potential just a little bit, he could prove their worth to all naysayers...

“You’re thinking too hard about something, Colonel,” Suga says when he returns to the office from a meeting of his own. “I can see the smoke pouring out of your ears.”

The lieutenant colonel shuts the double doors behind him when he walks in, unfastening the first two clasps of his uniform top, and Daichi has to remind himself that the view of his second-in-command’s collarbones _is not a blessing, not it’s not._

Daichi shrugs. “Maybe I am. Those transmissions from Xing’s agriculture adviser I had Warrant Officer Ennoshita look over were a little worrying. I know it’s drought season, but I thought his hint at a serious jack in prices was almost malicious…”

“Yes, that sounds threatening, doesn’t it?” Suga agrees. He grabs his usual chair at the side of Daichi’s desk but drags it over, moving to sit next to his commanding officer.

Resting his hand on Daichi’s shoulder, Suga sits and leans in a bit, trying to keep their conversation from the radar of the rest of the office.

“That isn’t it, is it?” he says quietly. “You’re wondering why General Ukai hasn’t assigned you a task worth doing, right?”

“I’m not--” Daich starts, but he sighs. “I swear you’re telepathic sometimes. That’s how you know all those languages. And why bother asking me if you already know?”

Suga grins conspiratorily. “Word on the street is Ukai’s handing us a case this week, and a dangerous one at that,” he says, and his eyes darken. “Chimera factory.”

“Is this Kuroo’s bullshit gossip or...?”

“General Takeda’s, sir,” Suga says confidently.  

Daichi nods, knowing full well that disclosed information of this gravity is generally truth. Suga scoots his chair back, settling his eyes on the finished stack of paper at the corner of Daichi’s desk.

“I’m glad you’ve finished early, Colonel,” he says. “I can’t say I was eager to repeat last night’s debacle.”

“At least you got _some_ sleep!” Daichi says, a little too loudly, which inspires Lt. Nishinoya to wolf-whistle across the office, Lt. Tanaka to call out “get some, Sawamura,” and Daichi to glare around the office until they’ve all gulped and returned to their tasks.

“We need to have a talk about discipline around here,” Daichi mutters. 

_

True to Takeda’s word, Daichi’s squad gets the case a few days later. He examines the suspect’s profile on the train to Dublith, head resting against the rattling frame of the train window. Suga sits across from him, eyes dutifully scanning the same copy with brows furrowed. Their knees bump together when the train lurches, but neither minds. It’s almost reassuring, this small and effortless contact he can share with Suga. While it does not remove the sickening feeling in his gut that he endures as he reads the horrifying crime report for the fifth time, it does dull it somewhat. It reassures him that he will never have to face this atrocity on his own.

Suga’s a kind man; it’s in his nature. Daichi’s childhood memories are more than enough to confirm that. Daichi remembers his second-in-command as the boy who stopped to pet every dog he met and outright refused to kill insects in the house because “it was too cruel.” Daichi had thought Suga would have made a wonderful doctor or teacher -- with this immense intellect and ability to empathize with pretty much anyone. And, Daichi figures, it’s basically his fault Suga’s in the military. The week before his eighteenth birthday, Suga had found him in the backyard, sketching transmutation circles in the dirt, rearranging mounds of rock in alchemic burst of light.

_What are you going to do now, Daichi? You’re nearly an adult._

_You’re even older._

_And you’re avoiding the question._

_I’m going to pass the State Alchemist exam._

_With flying colors?_

_That's the Sawamura way, isn't it? And then I’m going to be a general in the Amestrian military._

_Okay. Then I’ll go too._

Suga had promised to follow him into hell, and Daichi figured it was the most selfish thing he’d ever done, allowing this. Who was he to steal his best friend’s future like this, carry another’s life in his pocket, lead him into the fray of battle without escape? Daichi’s always thought his own death in battle would be fitting, destiny even. He thinks about dying in the line of duty a lot these days -- it’s unavoidable in his line of work, and he doesn’t think it would be so bad. Fitting, even. But when his mind turns to Suga’s potential fate, he feels like he’s suffocating.

A light kick to the shin pulls Daichi from his internal monologue.

“What did I tell you about thinking so much, Colonel?” Suga says, frowning. “Get too quiet for a minute and you know your squad will start believing you’re nervous.”

“Sorry,” Daichi says, closing the report and setting it aside.  “We’ve all got to put our game faces on. I won’t let me guard down any more.”

_

_“Here’s the deal--oi, Asahi stop making that face! You’re a state alchemist, at least act like it! Okay. Here’s the deal, guys. General Ukai’s given us an assignment and a big one at that. Chimeras. Humans forcibly combined with animals. You think you’ve seen some bad things in your life, well… I hate to burst your bubble, but this is going to make those things seem like a round of hopscotch. These are the things that stick with you. I advise you not to take this lightly and take this assignment with a hardened mind._

_“That said, I believe in all of you. We’re a team. I look around and I do not see a single person I wouldn’t trust my life with. I hope you all feel the same way, because I don’t think we can succeed without a certain level of trust in one another. We all will  have a role to play if we want to take down this evil and come back alive afterward._

_“We’ll split into groups. Maj. Hinata and Maj. Kageyama, Lt. Tanaka and Lt. Nishinoya, Maj. Azumane and Maj. Tsukishima, Lt Col. Sugawara and myself. We will enter the property. Hinata and Kageyama will lead and enter the building at its east wing. Tanaka and Nishinoya will follow from the north and Tsukishima and Azumane will enter from the west. When we get the okay from both of them, my group will follow from the south. Do not think I go in last to uphold some ridiculous notion that the leader’s life is most valuable -- I assure you, the south is most dangerous. Our reports tell us that the chimeras will be held there. To have a chance, we must ensure that the rest of their security is taken out before we begin to approach this area. Understood?_

_“Sergeant Yamaguchi will monitor communications and keep us in touch with Col. Kuroo and Brigadier General Oikawa’s squad in case we need emergency back up. They will be boarding the next train shortly. Warrant Officer Ennoshita, you will monitor the building’s periphery with Sgt. Narita and Sgt. Kinoshita. If you spy any funny business or see anyone flee the building, you will arrest them on the spot._

_“We will set into action in an hour. Now is the time to ask questions, gather weapons, redraw your alchemy circle, whatever you need to be ready. Remember to stay focused, no matter what, and do not endanger the lives of your teammates. We_ will _win.”_

_(“Man, Colonel, did you practice that speech in the mirror?” Tanaka says later, after they’ve dispersed._

_“I got chills,” Azumane admits bashfully.)_

_

 “Maj. Hinata here. We had a couple guys jump out at us but Kageyama covered me like gwaaah! and I drew up my circle and trapped the rest of them like baaa--ow, ow, ow, Kageyama, that _hurts_ , ow--!”

“That’s not how you talk over the radio, dumbass!”

“Well if you’re so smart, then why don’t you--”

There’s a loud rustle and what sounds like the communicator hitting the floor once.

After a while, “...This is Maj. Kageyama. The coast is clear.”

 _

“Yo, it’s Lt. Tanaka. We didn’t find anyone, but we’re in alright. It smells some kind of nasty in here though. Plus, Noya’s all disappointed because he’s spent all month working on his _rolling thunder_ and let me tell you, it’s a riot. Anyway, long story short, we’re all good here. We’ll catch ya at the check point. Over and out.”

 _

“Hi Yamaguchi. It’s Maj. Azumane. There were a whole bunch of guards, and we were held up for a while, but I think we go all of them. Not _think_ , sorry. We got all of them. We triple-checked. They’re all alive, don’t worry! But either knocked out or restrained. We’re gonna head over to the check point, okay? ...Oh, Tsukishima! Do you want to add anything?”

“No. Over.”

 _

“You’re clear, sir,” Yamaguchi informs them over the walkie-talkie. “And please be careful. None of them had to get through much before the center checkpoint. It sounds like they’ll be waiting for you.”

“Understood.”

“Also,” Yamaguchi says, “Oikawa’s on stand-by at the moment. He says good luck, call him if you need him, and, um, tell ‘Tobio- _chan_ ’ he says hi. Over.”

Daichi rolls his eyes and pockets the radio. Suga peers at him expectantly.

“Our turn?” Suga says, clicking the magazine back into the base of his handgun.

“After you,” Daichi replies, gesturing to the rusted chain link fence before them. _And please don’t leave my side_.

 _

The facility is dark, humid, and reeks of chemicals so horribly Daichi feels his stomach lurch when the stench first hits his nose. They had broken into the dirty, gray concrete bunker through its rotten wooden door, which Daichi had knocked down easily with the heel of his steel-toed boot. Suga leads the way down the dim hallway inside, his gun pointed up and at the ready. And while Daichi knows Suga’s always been a good shot, he stays close and guards his second-in-command’s back almost possessively. He’d sooner fight ten criminals on his own than see anyone brush a hair on Suga’s head. He’s seen Suga bruised and battered plenty of time, sure, they went through military training together after all, and that was no easy feat, but the idea of Suga injured, _defeated,_ and Daichi helplessly scrambling to soothe his pain or stop his bleeding is too grim a thought. He will not even entertain the possibility.

He monitors his surroundings carefully, ready to pounce on any sign of a threat. He’s mentally cataloguing the elements around him. What can he use? _Aluminum, iron, calcium, carbon, oxygen, sulfur…_ His palms sweat and he runs his fingers over the raised ridges of the red transmutation circles etched in his palms.

The hallway is narrow and only becomes more so as they wander deeper into the bunker. The stench only intensifies, and Daichi realizes with a start that the walls are lined with small cages, many of them bent out of shape. The walls are ragged and cracked, revealing of the drywall inside that seems to be torn apart with teeth or claws.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Suga murmurs. Daichi isn’t sure whether Suga meant for him to hear it, but he understands. He feels it in his gut, like he’s being watched.

Figuring they’re nearly two hundred meters inside, Daichi forces himself to relax a couple notches. He approximates that they’re only fifty meters from the checkpoint, which should be around the next corner and to the left. He senses no immediate presence in the building aside from his and Suga’s own, hears nothing but a steady drip of condensation from the pipes along the wall.

“Suga, let’s call,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” his subordinate says. He watches Suga drop his tense shoulders and lower his gun. Daichi’s about to reach into his pocket to retrieve his radio, when he feels a soft pinch on his shoulder, and Suga turns and shouts, gun raised. Daichi stiffens, raises his hands in the air, and the radio plunges to the concrete ground. Neither of them notice.

“Wha--?”

“Don’t move, Daichi.”

Daichi snaps his mouth shut, stares wide-eyed at Suga and the barrel of his loaded gun, no more than ten feet away. Suga’s eyes harden, focused on an object over his right shoulder, and Daichi’s skin itches with uncertainty. With a racing heart, he tries to resist trembling.

“There’s something on your shoulder,” Suga says calmly, like he isn’t aiming a gun within inches of his superior officer.

“What is--”

“A chimera,” he continues and swallows. “Do you trust me?”

Daichi squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation. “Yes.”

“Don’t move an _inch_.”

_ 

He hears Suga’s exhale and the echo of the gunshot through the tunnels of the bunker. Wind rips around the bullet when it zooms right past his neck. With a wet _thunk_ , Suga’s target tumbles to the ground, and Daichi’s head is fuzzy with relief when he drops to his knees and breathes for the first time in two minutes.

When he finally catches his breath, he cracks a smile up at his worried second-in-command. “Thank God for your aim _._ ”

Suga stomps over to him and jabs him in the chest. “I’m your Comm Specialist, not your goddamn _bodyguard_!” he chides. “Stop obsessing over my back and watch your own!”

Daichi coughs once. “Sorry,” he says. Offering a hand, Suga pulls him to his feet.

_

It’s not the first time Suga’s saved Daichi’s ass in the course of their twenty-eight years of friendship. There was the time Daichi collided with Tanaka and was knocked unconscious in the middle of a battle, and Suga had to empty his gun to cover both of them from enemy fire. There was the time Suga was able to intercept a rogue Drachman transmission and warn Daichi moments before an assassin attempted on his life. The list goes on.

Daichi has only saved Suga once.

There was the time Daichi was twelve, skinny, and generally coated in a healthy layer of dirt from all of his alchemic excursions. He’s eager, and he’ll believe anything he reads from the wonderful leather-bound alchemic tomes that line the shelves of his father’s study.

Just up the road from Daichi’s home lived the Sugawara family. Their mothers had been best friends as teenagers. Suga often came over to play tag and eat popsicles in the humid summer afternoons.

_What are you doing, Daichi?_

_A transmutation._

He’s tracing a lopsided circle into the soil of a flower bed with a twig he found under the trees in the backyard. He selectively pulls the sprigs of lemon balm with delicate yellow and white flowers blooming between the waxy green leaves and arranges them carefully into the center of the circle. He takes a deep breath and places his hands along the outer curve of his transmutation circle. Sparking white and blue, the stems wind around each other into the shape of a thin hoop and the flowers poke outward like gemstones-- a crude crown.

Suga stares mesmerized. Grinning, Daichi sets the crown on his best friend’s head.

_That’s a Melissa plant. Or...that’s what my mom calls it anyway. She said Melissa means “honey.” And they can grow in any condition -- even a blizzard._

_In what language?_

_Huh?_

_Melissa. In what language?_

_I dunno. She didn’t say._

_You should make one for yourself, Daichi. We can be royalty together._

_Can alchemists even be royalty? The Fuhrer isn’t an alchemist after all._

_Why don’t you become Fuhrer and find out?_

Suga begins as his number one fans. He claps, oohs, ahhs, and gasps at the right intervals when Daichi demonstrates his new learned abilities. He raises castles out of sand, sculptures of gravel, rock candy of crystal sugar.

_You’re amazing, Daichi!_

Shrouded in haze of pride at Suga’s avalanche of compliments, Daichi hadn’t detected the gleam of jealousy -- a treacherous riptide beneath the normally easy, comfortable companionship.

When it became dark outside and Daichi’s mother called them in, Daichi helped out in the kitchen, peeling vegetables for a salad. Suga planted himself in the study before Daichi’s stack of preferred alchemy resources

_How to press coal into diamond._

He found a few lumps of coal and the appropriate circle, sketched on a napkin in red ink by Daichi’s steady hand. In Daichi’s cramped handwriting, notes are scratched in the margins of the textbook.

_Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange._

_Comprehension, deconstruction, reconstruction._

Suga rested his hands along the circumference of the transmutation circle, shut his eyes and imagined the gleam of his mother’s wedding ring.

_It’s all carbon. Comprehension...deconstruction...reconstruction._

Daichi walked into the study to gather Suga for dinner when he saw the flash, smelled the o-zone, and felt his heart stop. Suga, bathed in blinding red light, screamed. Before his brain even registered the situation, Daichi was running behind the desk, throwing a hand down onto the circle, and knocking the other boy out of the way and onto the floor.

Lightning zigzagged from the circle, up Daichi’s arms and though his torso. He shook violently and clenched his teeth, blinked open one eye against his electrocution. This was a rebound, he knew, and if he didn’t act quickly, things would only get worse.

_What is under my hands?_

Against the white-hot sizzling pain and the reek of smoking hair and skin, he found the black dust between his fingers.

_It’s just bituminous coal._

The lightning vanished, leaving Daichi covered in angry red burns, a wicked Lichtenberg scar twisting around his torso like the Melissa vines he had shown Suga just hours previously.

Daichi has only saved Suga once, and Suga has never left his side since.

_I--...I gave you these scars._

_And I’d take a million more if it meant keeping you alive._

_

“It’s a chimera,” Daichi says, examining the creature that had been perched on his shoulder moments before. The chimera is not dead, but lies unconscious on the ground, black glossy feathers askew. Suga’s unloaded rubber bullet sits at its feet. “The face seems like a crow. But see this tail back here? That looks mammal to me. What do you think, Suga?”

“I don’t see any human evidence,” Suga says. “The skull size is usually the giveaway, since they’ll use the brain. There’s nothing like that here. ...I’m sorry I shot it. I don’t think it would’ve done you any harm. In a way, it’s kind of cute.”

“Do you think it’s a false alarm?” Daichi asks, disgust creeping into his voice. While creation of chimeras from non-human elements is technically legal and overseen by the State Alchemy board, Daichi finds the practice cruel and unsettling.

“Why would they guard the facility at all then? I think we’ve missed something crucial.”

“But,” he adds, picking up the walkie-talkie and straightening its bent antenna. “You might want to buzz Sgt. Yamaguchi first, sir.”

_

“This is Colonel Sawamura, over.”

“Colonel!” Yamaguchi half-shouts. “You were late! We thought something had happened. Are you and the lieutenant colonel okay? Over.”

“We ran into a chimera. Small one. Legal. We’re both fine, but there was a shot fired. The others probably heard. Please tell them to stay calm. We’re proceeding to checkpoint now. Over.”

_

They regroup shortly afterward. Nishinoya and Tanaka whine about their group’s lack of action (“And I was so ready too! I mean, how cool would it have been to tell Captain Shimizu about our field experience?!” “ _So_ cool, Ryuu!”). Azumane praises Tsukishima’s performance, much to the latter’s chagrin (“Maj. Tsukishima did so well. I haven’t seen him perform before but I’m really impressed! Um, it’s too bad he’s not an alchemist, since he’s got such a fundamental understanding of his surroundings!” “...Please stop talking.”). Hinata and Kageyama argue (“I totally took down more of them!” “No, I did! I took down the first-wave single-handedly while you just farted around with your little chemistry experiments!” “It’s called _alchemy_ , Bakageyama!”). Daichi is pleased to see that his squad’s dynamic has not been altered by the stressful conditions of the field -- like all squads, they perform better when they remain unruffled.

Suga squeezes his shoulder. “We’re all awaiting your orders, sir.”

The whole squad quiets down and looks at their commanding officer expectantly. Daichi takes a deep breath.

“We’re going to search the whole area. We’ll stick together as a squad, so stay close,” he says, making brief eye contact with each of his officers. “My gut’s telling me it only gets uglier from here.”

_

They find a cellar door on the north side of the complex. Clapping his tattooed palms together and setting them to the damp ground, Daichi dissolves the iron lock into a pile of filings and blasts, combusting the wood by force with the oxygen in the air. They’re immediately met with fire, and the squad ducks in cover.

“Asahi! Alchemize something right now,” Daichi shouts, raising a concrete shield to block as much of his squad as he can reach from the hailstorm of bullets. “Or I swear, I’m submitting a request to rename you ‘the Glass-Heart Alchemist!’ And for the love of God, _would you stop making that goddamn face_!”

Asahi flinches, but pulls out a marker and draws a transmutation circle around the iron filings at Daichi’s feet. “Give me an opening, Daichi.”

Clapping again, Daichi quickly opens a hole in the floor. Azumane meets his circle with his fingers, animating the filings into returning fire at the enemy, flung haphazardly into the hole in the floor like nails from a cannon. There are cries from below, but the gun shots cease.

“Fuck yeah, Asahi!” Tanaka cheers, emerging from behind Daichi’s wall.

Nishinoya claps him on the back. “‘The Ace Alchemist’ strikes again! Bastards never saw it comin’.”

“That was brilliant. Why can’t you do that all the time?” Daichi says, pleased. Azumane smiles back nervously.

_

Their journey underground is marked with waves on gunmen. Daichi works over time, constructing concrete shields, while Nishinoya finds and reinforces their weak spots. Asahi fires more bullets from the materials he finds in the concrete tunnel and the buttons and metal on his discarded uniform top. Tanaka and Hinata alternate alchemically spiking the dripping stalactites of the cave-like ceiling onto the line of enemy gunmen from a circle Hinata hastily drew with Asahi’s marker onto a strip of his undershirt. At either side of the shield, Kageyama, Tsukishima, and Sugawara trade deafening rounds of fire, handing replacement clips down the line when one runs low. They work together as a unit, at a level of breakneck efficiency that Daichi would like to step back and admire, if he wasn’t so occupied with protecting their asses from a shower of ammunition. Daichi only curses that he hasn’t any silicon at his disposal -- if he could construct a bullet-proof glass window, he could better direct their approach.

The hallway volley continues for nearly twenty minutes before the last shot is fired, and Daichi’s ears are ringing unpleasantly.

“Lower the shield, Colonel,” Suga says once the smoke has cleared after ten minutes of silence, peering out into the fray. He neither hears or spies any movement “We’re clear.”

“Back in groups!” Daichi orders. “We’ll go out two at a time. Mind your surroundings!”

“Yes, sir!”

Daichi relocates to Suga’s side, as his second-in-command kneels on the ground, reloading his handgun.

“I forget how good you are at your job, sometimes,” Daichi says, kneeling beside him, passing Suga a canteen of water he stowed in the deep pocket of his royal blue uniform pants. “Did you even miss one target?”

Suga grins. “I do more than just stand behind you and look pretty, sir.”

“I know,” Daichi says happily, feeling a blush tint his cheeks. “Sometimes you make fun of Oikawa in Cretan, and I fall a little in love.”

By the time Suga clicks the magazine of his semi-automatic back into place, their faces are both scarlet.

_

The first thing he does when he sees it is step in front of Suga. He doesn’t want to look at all, but he can’t avert his gaze, only hopes that he can shield Suga from the horrific sight. Suga grips his sweaty hand and steps around him anyway. Gasps and falters. The whole squad does. The whole atmosphere around them morphs from one of determination to repulsion. Daichi can’t even speak, the way his tongue feels like rubber in his throat.

“These...were people?” Hinata whispers. Kageyama gulps, and for once, Tanaka and Nishinoya stand frozen in place like statues.

Five grotesque silhouettes stand in barred cells along the far wall. One of them makes a noise that sounds dangerously like choking and mewls ominously. Suga applies the safety to his handgun and it falls to the floor with a clatter as he rushes over to the nearest of the cages. Daichi doesn’t want to follow, doesn’t want to see what he knows will only stick with him in nightmares, but his legs follow anyway. As he watches Suga’s fingers curl around the iron bars, he realizes it’s the first time he’s seen his childhood best friend’s hands shake since the day Daichi got his scars.

_I always do this to you._

There’s a scream from Asahi, and Daichi swerves, spies the gunman out of the corner of his eyes. He dives in front of his second-in-command, hands spread protectively, all before his mind jolts alive. He’s in his study again. Pain shrieks through his nerves when the bullet hits him square in the back, rips a groan from his lips, bulges his eyes open long enough to spot Suga’s anguished face, thinks he’s spies a tear at the corner of his subordinate’s eye. And when he hits the ground, he swears he sees a flash a lightning, a cloud of o-zone.

_And I’d take a million more bullets if it meant keeping you alive._

_

The first thing Daichi thinks about when he wakes up, strangely enough, is that his State Alchemist re-evaluation is coming up, and that he really ought to polish his Pocket watch so he doesn’t come off as a total slob. And when he tries to get up to retrieve said polish, he’s halted by the shock of the IV needle in his arm. He nearly yelps, and the bites his lip, glad that no one is around to witness his reaction. He feels vaguely like a little kid.

The second thing he notices is Lieutenant Colonel Sugawara Koushi, curled up in a chair in the corner of his otherwise bare, white room and sleeping soundly. Oh, he thinks, this must be a hospital. It smells sterile.

And the third thing is that he feels both foggy and kind of like he got hit by a truck. He groans at the sharp ache in his back and vows never to move a muscle from the softness of his pillows ever again.

“Ughhh…”

Suga’s eyelids twitch at the sound, and he rouses awake.

“Daichi!”

“What am I--?”

“Daichi, you’ve been asleep for days! Oh, thank God, thank God,” Suga cries, getting up from his chair and crossing the room to Daichi’s bedside. “I’m so glad. I was so worried.”

“A-- _ha_ ,” Daichi says articulately. “I’m sor--”

“Don’t you dare apologize, you stupid, _stupid_ colonel,” Suga seethes, face flushed pink, voice rising in pitch with his agitation. “As if that changes what happened! You’re so damn lucky that bullet missed your spine by an inch. An _inch_! Do you know how angry I am? How could you do that? How the _fuck_ can you make general if you die in action before you’re promoted?!”

Daichi’s learned along time ago not to interrupt Suga’s rants.

“Never do that again,” Suga says, more quietly this time, pressing a gentle kiss into Daichi’s hair. “You selfish jerk -- did you ever think that I couldn’t possibly live without you? Because that’s how we are. I don’t care if I have to hound you over paperwork every day for the rest of my life. Don’t you dare leave me!”

Daichi forces a smile through Suga’s rant, but he’s sure it looks more like a grimace, his back hurts so much.

Suga lowers himself to Daichi’s forehead, presses a chaste kiss there, and whispers into his skin. “Are you okay, Daichi? Do you need anything? Does it hurt?”

“I could use about a hundred more kisses, Lieutenant,” Daichi murmurs.

“I can manage that.”

“And,” Daichi adds, as Suga’s lips trace his jaw line, “if you find a drip of morphine lying around somewhere, I wouldn’t say no.”

_

His squad throws him a small party when he returns to his office a couple weeks later, when the pain has dulled enough that he can tolerate sitting in a chair and his stitches have dissolved. Suga leads him into the office, pinching the cloth of his uniform jacket at the elbow.

He eats a sliver of chocolate cake, teases Asahi mercilessly, and pulls up the Dublith Chimera Lab report, filed nearly a month ago. (If there is one benefit to his injury, it’s that he did not have fill out the paperwork -- the handwriting seems to be Ennoshita’s). His memories of the investigation fill in the blanks of the report’s dry recap of events, but he’s grateful to read that Maj. Kageyama incapacitated the gunman, and Oikawa’s squad was called in to secure the perimeter and assist with the arrests. The red stamp at the bottom of the final page marks the case closed.

He signs and dates where he’s supposed, shoves the whole thing into his outbox, and when he looks up, a short, blond woman is eyeing him nervously. He sees Nishinoya and Tanaka ogle her from their work stations, and Suga snaps at the to get back to work and _can’t you see you’re annoying your injured superior officer_.

“Sergeant Yachi Hitoka, sir!” she squeaks. “I work under Col. Michimiya. T-this is from the colonel!” And she passes him the folded post-it note and flees the room.

Daichi peels it open, reads it, and sighs exasperatedly. “I’ve been back for two hours and Yui’s already stirring up rumors.”

Suga cocks an eyebrow, leaning over to read the note for himself.

_Hope you’re feeling better, especially with a certain gray-haired subordinate by your side. I won’t tell a soul, but I’m about 99% sure the fraternization laws are an urban legends anyway. XO, Yui_

_

“Evidently,” Suga says, examining Daichi’s broad bare back as they lay together in bed, tracing the vine of scars that wind from his shoulders to his waist interrupted only by the puffy, circular mark from the bullet, just a hair from the ridges of his vertebrae. He traces the veins of twisted tissue from start to finish, and Daichi shivers. “Evidently, the General’s commending our whole office.”

“I’m glad,” Daichi says into his pillow. “They work hard. They deserve it.”

“And,” Suga continues, pressing his lips to the base on Daichi’s neck, watching the fine hairs there rise in goosebumps, “you’re receiving a promotion.”

“That would make me a Brigadier General, wouldn’t it?”

“I believe it would, General Sawamura, sir.”

Daichi turns to his side, trunk held up where his elbow dips into the mattress. “I understand the whole honorifics thing in the office. Discipline and all that, I get it. But,” he says seriously, “it’s really weird in bed.”

Suga smiles widely, before winding his arms around Daichi’s neck, pressing their chests square together, and kissing him hard on the mouth.

_

He sends Maj. Hinata to Yui’s office the next day with a sheet of wide ruled paper, folded into quarters.

_Steadfast, my ass. I might just be the most irrational one around._

 

**Author's Note:**

> how adorable are anime daichi's eyebrows though
> 
> if you wanna scream about daisuga or hq in general, find me at [](http://s-uga.tumblr.com)s-uga@tumblr


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